4/25/24-Rewritten for quality and continuity. The original AN mentioned that I wrote most of this in class instead of doing work, fitting for old high school me lol. I think this was late 2017, wow. To quote the original AN: "I filled nearly a side and a half of a binder paper and used nearly a third of my tiny amount of remaining ink in my favorite pen. And that wasn't even the whole chapter. This chapter is dedicated to the piece of binder paper and my nearly dead pen." RIP to the original story I wrote, but high school me would be impressed at my slight improvement in storytelling anyways!

Chapter 8: Secrets Within

Yoltrun flew into the night keeping note of the whole situation. The fact that Heather was Danny Phantom's daughter made that transformation from the portal make far more sense. What didn't make sense however was why Danny didn't tell his daughter about his ghost half. Kids were secretive and shy, so he did get why Heather said nothing to her father. But Danny didn't have a reason not to say anything. He could've prepared for ghosts returning and his daughter getting powers. But he didn't.

But then, it came to him. Danny didn't think to monitor the presence of portals. How could something so obvious slip the Halfa's mind? Yoltrun tried to justify those actions. No ghost monitors, no portal monitors, just the anti-portal stations. He realized it was just human error. Danny must've decided that his tech was infallible, even the unstoppable connection between the worlds could be severed. Impossible. You can block the worlds, but the worlds want to be together. Soon enough, they'll find a way to connect again. And once they do, they'll do whatever it takes to connect again.

An epiphany. They'll do whatever it takes! Yoltrun stopped mid-flight. That's obviously why portals are showing up again. But the next reasonable step was to come together again. The worlds couldn't just fix the bond now, not with the facilities still running. Something more had to happen. But what could that be?

The next morning was uneventful at first. Besides Yoltrun's disappearing act, the ghost puppy tearing up a pillow, and a plate slipping through Heather's hands and breaking, nothing was different... Until Alex showed up at Heather's request after her dad left for work and while her mom was getting ready to leave. They were able to sneak into the basement without issue.

Heather stared at the wall of the basement with tiny vents at the top. That was the one leading to the secret room. She could get through easily, but she had to figure out how to get Alex through. Luckily, he had the book.

"Okay, so if you go intangible while touching a solid object, you can make that object intangible as well. Theoretically, you can take me with you. Realistically..." Alex trailed off. He didn't need to finish his sentence; Heather knew he was gonna say she probably would suck at it.

"Ha, ha. Funny." That sarcastic tone earned Heather a joking smirk from her friend. "Give me that book, let me check it out." She read the pages about intangibility. Most of it was sciency garbage she couldn't understand nor had a use for. Blah blah blah, nothing touches intangible ghosts. Blah blah blah, stuff can be made intangible. But there it was, a basic description.

Intangibility is very difficult to study due to the inability to use any physical tools to inspect the intangible being or object. A ghost apparently changes it's molecules to be "out of phase" with the molecules of normal objects. This is an innate property of ectoplasm. How a ghost activates it is still unknown, as every testimony from a ghost has stated that they "will it to happen." Due to even half-ghosts claiming the same method of activation, it can be assumed it is a deeper connection with the individual's ectoplasmic body and brain, and is under further study. Due to this power being based in ectoplasm and not a ghost's core, this power can be harnessed in technology thanks to the ability to manipulate the properties of ectoplasm and intangible objects able to spread intangibility to non-ectoplasmic objects.

Heather slammed the book shut. "Well, that was useless. Apparently, I have to just make it happen. That's it." She went to her ghost form, and simultaneously was interrupted by another cold breath. "And what in the world even is that?"

"That would be your ghost sense."

The voice made both of the kids jump. Yoltrun was floating behind them.

Alex quickly hid behind Heather. "Is that-"

"Yes, I am a ghost. And I'm not a that, I am Yoltrun. Heather, what topic are you focusing on now?"

"Intangibility. I need to take Alex through this wall here. I can make myself intangible, but I haven't tried making other things intangible. But first, explain ghost sense."

"The ghost sense thing is a problem for later. I can take Alex through the wall for you, but that wouldn't be a lesson, would it? Just take your intangibility and extend it as if you were harnessing your ghost energy. I don't know what to say here, it just works."

"Funny, that's exactly what the book said you'd say," Heather said sarcastically. She activated intangibility, focusing on that odd feeling of being intangible and willed it to to to the book. And like magic, it really did just work.

Yoltrun smiled. "See, what did I tell you? You make it happen, and it happens. Now, you'll have to focus a little harder on changing your friend. Larger objects take more energy to turn intangible. Just focus and you'll get it."

Heather grabbed Alex by the arm, and turned intangible. Her hands phased right through Alex's arm. She took a deep breath and tried again, and tried even harder. This time, it worked. Slowly, keeping her focus, they walked through the wall together. "I did it? I did it! Yes! I'm so good at this!" The room was still pitch black, but Heather was prepared with her phone flashlight.

Alex stared at his hands, then at the wall. "That was so weird!"

Yoltrun followed them through. "Now, about that ghost sense, you just sense new ghosts in your vicinity. It's mostly a half-ghost thing, something about your human half's reaction to ghost energy, and I'm not sure how it works. Point is, it's a ghost detector built into your core. Anyways, I will train you because the faster you get a hang of your powers, the better prepared you'll be in the future for whatever ghost business goes on."

"We have school," Heather noted, "I won't be able to do anything until later tonight."

"Fine. I'll just go do some research for my job. Give me some contact information so I can warn you when I'm coming."

Heather opened her phone and gave the ghost her social media info of choice. Yoltrun took a picture with his scanner, mumbling about needing to make an account for it.

"Thanks, Halfa. Now, go have fun at your boring human school, I'm going out to do some boring research. See you soon!" With that, Yoltrun flew up and out of the room.

"Anyways, welcome to the secret room! Go ahead, check out the boxes," Heather said.

Alex nervously looked around the large yet mostly empty room, then checked the boxes. "This is so weird. It's like finding hidden treasure, but with ghost hunting equipment."

"Yeah, it's super weird. We have Danny Phantom's old outfits too."

"I noticed. Nice cosplay, by the way," he joked.

"Oh, yeah. I put one on, don't worry about it. That's not the point of coming down here anyways, The point is this." A weak ball of ghost energy gathered in Heather's hand, and she launched it at one wall. It collided with the wall, making the mortar of the bricks glow for a few seconds, just as she saw last night. "What do you think of that?" She launched another energy ball at the wall.

"I think there's got to be more than just the glow. In games, this would be a puzzle. Glowing things usually are."

Heather smirked. "Oh, whatever would I do without your gaming expertise? Of course it's more than just a glow, we play all the same games and I know the same tricks."

Alex walked up a bit closer to the wall. "Well, go through it then. See what's back there."

"Wow. I should've thought about that." She immediately tried dashing through the wall, but seemed to hit it instead. It took her a few more tries to realize it wasn't her powers failing. There was some sort of ghost-proofing happening.

"That's suspicious," she said. "Looks like we'll have to do this the gamer way." She gathered some energy to her hand and touched the wall. The mortar stayed glowing.

"Heather, look!" Alex pointed out one of the bricks. "This one is glowing a bit. I think it's the key."

Bingo, she thought. She pushed the glowing brick, but nothing happened. She hit it with energy directly. It glowed even brighter than before. If a little energy made it glow like that, a lot of energy had to do more, right?

Well, she was right. She forced a lot of energy to her hand, barely containing it, and placed it on the brick. She then let out the energy in a ghost ray directly into the brick. The brick glowed green, then started moving. A whole bunch of the bricks did the same. The wall parted and revealed a room blocked off by a transparent, glowing green barrier. There were computers, tables with old beakers filled with mysterious substances on them, shelves full of mysterious objects, and an unusual metal door on the back wall. Unfortunately, she couldn't go through the barrier, but Alex could.

Alex tried pulling her through, but the wall of light was more like a wall of glass for her. "Alex, stop! Maybe it's a ghost shield."

"Hmm. Maybe you have to be a human?"

Heather went back to her human form and walked into the shield. Sure enough, she went straight through. "Now, lets check this stuff out," she said, "We never know what we might find."

The two started looking around the room, but they didn't get much time. Heather picked up a dusty laptop, and immediately, a loud alarm went off. The brick door began to close.

"Run!" Heather yelled over it. She yanked the charger out of the laptop and ran out, Alex tailing her. They escaped right in the nick of time. The only way out now would be up; her mom certainly hadn't left for work yet, and would be coming to investigate. If there was some secret door to the empty storage, they were screwed. She had to figure out flying, and fast.

Escape, run, fly, ran through Heather's mind as she panicked. With the laptop in one hand and a tight grasp of Alex's shoulder in the other, she transformed and jumped into the air. Fly! Through the roof! Need to fly! She focused on flight. Intangibility and flight. This time, it worked. She took to the sky, while intangible, and really did make it all the way up through the roof. A successful escape.

Sam was packing up to leave for work when a loud, distinct beeping came from the basement. She recognized it as the alarm to the secret lab. Only people with access to ghost energy can enter the lab... so why is the alarm going off?

She grabbed her phone and called Danny while going down to the basement. She pulled open a specific brick hiding a keypad on the side wall and typed in the password to the secret storage room. The bricks parted and opened the room. The few storage boxes were disturbed. She flicked on the light switch, but the light was burnt out. She ignored that and promptly yanked off the light switch cover, revealing another keypad hidden in the backing box With a few presses of some buttons, Sam turned off the alarm and made the bricks next to the backing box part and reveal a touchscreen tablet containing the security control.

Finally, Danny answered the phone. "Hey, what's up? You almost never call me when I'm driving."

"Lab alarm. Get home now. We might have an intruder."

There was a pause. "Okay. Let me park and I'll fly over there soon." He hung up.

Sam knew it would take him a few minutes, so she started going through the weapons to see if any of them had live ectoplasm or ghost energy to open the lab. Unfortunately, all the ectoplasm had dried into a dark-green, transparent, hard and flaky substance with no energy left. Her fault for not maintaining the ones down here. Of course, all the weapons with ghost-energy batteries had long since corroded as well. She decided to go back to the security screen instead of grabbing a weapon from upstairs, she felt better staying and monitoring the situation.

The screen was dusty, but Sam wiped off the dust and checked the ghost energy detectors. There were readings of ghost energy, ranging small to average amounts. Motion detectors show two people entered the lab. The cameras had dust covering the lenses and busted microphones, so that was no help. Once again, her fault for not maintaining them. She monitored the readings and waited for Danny, who came crashing down a few seconds later.

Without saying a word, he went to his human form and took a small ball of energy in his hand and put it against the key brick and opened up the lab. "What's the security report?" He asked.

"Ghost energy detected in the storage room, only small amounts, none in the lab. Two people recorded by the motion detectors. The cameras had too much dust on the lens and the microphones are dead. The storage room seems to have had more energy readings both from now and around three in the morning."

With a sigh, Danny went through the shield and took a look around the lab, noticing something missing.

"Sam, the master laptop is gone."

Sam felt the fear rise. "You mean the one with everything we know about ghosts?"

He nodded. "Yes. The one with everything. Everything. We need to get that back, and quick."

Somewhere in the Ghost Zone...

The shrouded ghost looked on his many screens. One with the ghost scientist. One with Danny Phantom. And one with Phantom's daughter. The ghost's brow was furrowed in focus. The cameras were a tough one to take care of. The girl and her friend were saved, but it took a lot of energy out of him doing it. It was a direct manipulation. He had to figure out a way to get that energy back.

An idea came to him. He could feel the disturbance in the energy of the Ghost Zone. New portals were opening soon. What if two of them just happened to open in front of a couple ghosts? What if those ghosts wanted to get to Amity Park? What if the portals took them there? That would be an incredible coincidence.

The ghost did the calculations in his head. Yes, excellent coincidences indeed. He concentrated a bit of his banked energy, and waved one spectral hand in the air. It was done. The change was made. Within the next few days, he would have his energy back. And when he does, he'll be another step ahead in this game.

4/25/24-Another chapter that was once dull was made a bit more interesting! I call that a success!